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Today’s socially enabled web is changing customer service and support. In fact, it is the very thing that has so many in Public Relations and Marketing scratching their heads. Service and support are the result of a medium (social media and social networking technology) that is bidirectional. Customers are not just in control of the message, they are expecting you to listen and act upon what you hear. (more…)

Work should be fun. That means a lot of things – like caring about your work, being more engaged and being more productive. You can accomplish some of this by working on things you love and enjoy (making work less work?). You can accomplish it by communicating in less frustrating ways and making it easier to find information that matters. You can also accomplish it by laughing more and not taking everything so seriously.

My great friend Jim Pelley travels around the globe as a keynote speaker and expert on laughter in the workplace. He talks about using humor to embrace risk, manage change, provide better customer service and more. You can do great work and be productive without feeling like you want the day to be over so you can move on to something more fun.

So today, if you’re stressed and feeling the pressure of deadlines and commitments. Just say, “Chicken pot, chicken pot, chicken pot pie!”

Have a laugh today and everyday!

Share something that makes you laugh at work! Do you have permission for work to be fun? Please share your experience with us!

Social business requires change in more than your marketing department, are you ready?

There is a fundamental change in how we do business. Driven by the networked communication tools flourishing on the web, tools like YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn, how we communicate with those who benefit from our services and how we organize ourselves productively are changing.

Being aware of these technologies is a very different thing from understanding them, actually using them, and knowing how to get the best out of them. This is before we even begin to touch on the subject of how to use them in a business context and how to “manage them”.

There is a genie that has been let out of the bottle and, just as with the invent of the wheel, the printing press or eight-track tape, there is little doubt that things will ever be the same again.

So given that this change is happening, and is almost certainly already beginning to happen inside and around your organization, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to revert to “business as usual” and continue to run your business in a conventional command and control way and talk to those you serve as passive consumers? Or are you going to embrace this new networked world, learn the ropes, and get ahead of your competition by getting those conversations with your staff and your customers started as soon as you can?

Euan Semple, Director, Voice and euansemple.com
Thursday, February 23 – 3:00 p.m. PSTThe New “Business as Usual”
Euan Semple will talk about about driving business by leveraging social media to change culture, re-design workflow and grow profit.

Jon Ferrara, CEO, Nimble
Wednesday, March 21 – 10:00 a.m. PST
Social Media and Sales Relationships
Jon Ferrara will offer tips about how to work as an effective team by tracking and managing contacts, prospects, and activities. Specifically, how to maximize marketing impact, make more revenue in less time and the benefits of unified communication.

December 29, 2011 (Sacramento, CA) — Sacramento Steps Forward is a non-profit tasked with a critical mission of ending homeless in Sacramento by 2020, serving as a national example of how to end chronic homelessness. Beginning in January 2012, C7group will partner with Sacramento Steps Forward staff and volunteers to implement social business strategy and tactics for their organization.

It always helps when an interview turns fun and entertaining. When our CEO, Jeff Marmins was interviewed by Sacramento radio legend, Kat Maudru, listeners got some great value and tips along with their laughs.

Social Media for Business: Kat and Jeff yuck it up

Kat and Jeff had a lively discussion at Entercom Sacramento Radio about social media for business. The program originally aired on November 28, 2011.

The conversation serves as an introduction to social media in business, including the importance of the communications channels available through the internet, what tools to use and how to use these tools to improve workflow process and drive sales.

C7group is transforming the services marketplace by helping organizations realize the potential of their business from a “customers and people first” perspective. We integrate strategy with social business technology and workflow practices to provide you with a complete, integrated custom business solution.

Please listen to or download the podcast of the interview below.

Is your business using social technology in a unique way? Tell us how!

It’s our opinion that the practice of SEO continues to evolve just as it has since attempting to gain high search results for keyphrases in the 1990’s on sites such as Alta Vista, Excite and Lycos. Unfortunately for SEO practitioners, especially those in small to mid sized markets like Sacramento, SEO is becoming SEM or Search Engine Marketing. This means that getting a high serch return on your keyword or phrase will have to be based on content of relevance and value to the subject matter. It’s already happened to some degree with, for example, the change in Google’s search algorithm in 2009 to not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking.

Organic search results are becoming more driven by relevant content, sharing, social media interaction and the credibility and influence of the author.(more…)

We’re grateful for the help and support of so many. We hope this video is as entertaining to you as it is to us. Perhaps you know Eric Qualman, Author of Socialnomics. His team has produced some great content and this short video “Social Media Intern” is no exception.

Small businesses can be social businesses. This means small business can use social technology and tools to do their work better and serve customers better. Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) is at the center, and a critical component of our solution. Although we are a “strategy first,” consulting company, we’ve been exploring software in this space for years. Recently we took a look at all of the lower cost solutions for small business and selected Nimble as a software partner. Our criteria included integration with Google Apps and public social platform integration.

There were many other features that we wanted to see, but these were the central pieces. Integration with social platforms life Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter also had to include discovery. This means that once our software had contact data and an email address, it would suggest online profiles for our contact. Essentially, it is automatically listening to the social web for relevant information that pertains to prospects and customers that might influence a deal. Social integration in CRM also meant a unified Inbox, allowing communication with customers on email, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn without leaving the page. We’re always looking for solutions that offer the “fewest tabs open in a browser window.”

Nimble has recently rolled out it’s integrations with Hubspot, Wufoo and Mailchimp, making it an even more attractive puzzle piece for managing small business with Internet based tools.

There’s no question that the avaialbility of high speed data on a mobile platform has a lot to do with today’s social adoption. Social business platforms must be available to the mobile user. And, as business needs to continue to appeal to the workforce of tomorrow – we better pay attention to how they want to communicate. Thanks to Hack College for this great depiction of how mobile has changed life on campus